Cable newsers are ga-ga over breaking news that Dick Cheney's doctors discovered that he had an irregular heartbeat today:

"During examination he was incidentally found to have an irregular heartbeat, which on further testing was determined to be atrial fibrillation, an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of the heart," said spokeswoman Megan Mitchell.

She said Cheney would go to the hospital later Monday for further evaluation. She said that if necessary, he would be receive cardioversion, a procedure that involves the delivery of an electric impulse to the heart.

Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't seem odd that a vice president's health problem might be discovered "incidentally" --- or that his spokeswoman is, well, speaking about it. But this is Dick Cheney. And it brings us to a question: Is this story real, or could it be a fabrication meant to set the stage for Cheney's resignation?

Before you dismiss the latter as speculation from a conspiracy nut whose tin-foil hat is on too tight, consider this:

Cheney and Bush created an incredibly elaborate and entirely false rationale for taking the country to war --- a massive misinformation campaign that completely snookered the corporate media and a majority of the public and that has yet to be sussed out. Faking news of an irregular heartbeat in order to shuffle Cheney off the stage quietly is child's play by comparison.

It's a damn good excuse. The standard remedy for heart ailments like atrial fibrillation is to reduce stress. The only practicable way for a sitting vice president to reduce stress is to resign.

With Cheney out of the way, a new vice president could run for president with all the campaign advantages of the incumbency, especially including the ability to manufacture events and control the flow of news.

And the motivations for moving Cheney out under false pretenses are manifold:

Both Cheney and Bush are undoubtedly desperate to keep the presidency in the hands of their allies. There probably aren't enough shredders in the world to destroy all the evidence of criminal acts they've perpetrated against this great nation. Whatever they have done will become immediately known to the next president, who, if he or she is a Democrat, could decide to seek justice.

The next president will also have the option of opening up the presidential records of the George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan administrations --- records that were supposed to be unsealed in 2004 but that George W. Bush embargoed indefinitely. (There was wide speculation that these records show that Bush Sr. was not "out of the loop" on Oliver North's illegal sales of weapons to Iranians, as he claimed at the time.)

Finally, if it were to happen that Bush and Cheney were impeached together --- say for lying to prosecutors about their roles in covering up their conspiracy to reveal the secret identity of CIA agent Valerie Wilson --- the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, would become president. If Cheney retires and is replaced now, the presidency will stay in the hands of the GOP until January 2009, at least.

Yes, it all sounds far-fetched but the Cheney-Bush team has defied the natural laws of politics from day one. From their theft in plain sight of Florida's Electoral College votes in 2000 to their cynical manipulation of the country's nationalism after the 9/11 attacks --- to botching the invasion and occupation of Iraq, to the bizarre incompetence and brazen indifference they displayed during Katrina, to their apparent pride in betraying a CIA program that tracked weapons of mass destruction and on and on --- Cheney and Bush have managed to cling to power under circumstances that would have driven normal presidents out of office or at least permanently into the rose garden.

At some point the normal rules of gravity in party politics have to kick in. For starters, the GOP powers-that-be must by now be near the limit of their tolerance for the damage being done to their party by Dick Cheney and George Bush. If so, the time to demand a remedy is now. We are approaching the final moments of the eleventh hour before votes are cast in the 2008 primaries.

Normal people often overlook how hierarchical Republicans are by nature. They prefer to anoint their candidates in an orderly way: In the absence of a sitting vice president, as George H.W. Bush was to Reagan in 1992, a senior statesman is anointed, as Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole was in 1996 --- or, better yet, they can satisfy their aristocratic yearnings by anointing the son of a former president, as they did the current Bush in 2000.

This year, in the absence of a clear choice, Republicans find themselves facing a roster of unacceptable candidates: a philandering liberal, a Mormon, an aging warrior who's considered insufficiently doctrinaire, a lazy television actor, a former preacher with a weak record as governor of Arkansas and a Libertarian kook.

The strain of this disorderliness must be tormenting the GOP power base. And all of it could be wiped away in a simple fiat --- the replacement of Dick Cheney with a new vice president whom they could anoint right away to become Bush's successor.

So who might fit the bill --- who could be counted on to beat the Democrats next November and keep the Bush family secrets for at least four more years?

Only one name comes to mind. He is experienced and available, and tanned and rested --- and his name is Jeb.

This provides the perfect opportunity to set the stage for Mr. Cheney to become "too ill" to testify to any of his wrongdoings. And my tinfoil hat side says he will fake his own stroke or death to keep himself out of jail after leaving office.

I've always thought that Cheney would avoid getting in trouble one way or the other. How hard would it be for him to fake his death and go live in Dubai? Maybe he will see his buddy Ken Lay from Enron there.

I'm with ya in spirit, Floridiot. However, I would like to see him sweat and squirm for a while longer in this life, as well as to have some more time to witness the trouble he has deposited in our laps, and in the laps of future generations. Oh, and I'd also like to mention the shame has brought on his family. Tracing your lineage back to Dick Cheney will be like tracing your lineage back to Jack the Ripper.

We both want to see him suffer, just in different ways. As he would say, "It's a no-brainer for me."

There has been a lot of exits so far this year. I think something is very obvious within the hauls of the White House. Yes, there is a "pink" elephant in that house of crooks that is about to go "nova."

You can only hold so many lies. Sooner or later the lie(s) will come out. It feels like the president's men/women are running scared.

You have to except my "gut" on this one; I am baffled but sure something is out there.

My problem is that the speculation may be headed in the wrong direction. There are executive orders in place at this time that would permit the president to declare a national emergency in the event of a new "terrorist incident" on U.S. soil. This could entail martial law, a "temporary" shutting down of Congress and a suspension of elections.

There is a growing body of evidence that Cheney is "again" fixing the intelligence and the facts around the policy in a run-up to at least bombing if not invading Iran, an action that will produce a tremendous blowback not only for our troops in Iraq but for national security here at home. Attacking Iran would seem irrational unless one considers that these people may not want to leave office--that the goal of these fascists was and is power--pure, unchecked permanent power.

We cannot wait until after an Iran invasion to impeach, and we cannot wait for the man to have a heart attack. In fact, one has to ask how a man with no heart can be suffering from atrial fibrillations?

Although the premise of the article is plausible, it always makes me crazy when people attribute the mess we (and Iraq) are in by claiming the bushies are incompetent. That's the biggest myth that they have successfully gotten everyone, including the progressive movement, to believe. These people haven't gotten everything right, but they have the world basically where they want it.

Chaos in Iraq maintains the US presence, but keeps the Iraq oil off the market but in US hands. If Iraqi oil floods the market at the wrong time, the oil companies sickening profits would be under assault.

Katrina was NOT mishandled. How do you turn a city with a large black population into a white Vegas? Let the hurricanes do the job for you! Now that's efficiency! The climate change folks should use this as a case study in societal engineering.

They did let the secret wiretapping out of the bag, but hey, the dems are doing a good job of keeping it going.

A sinking economy and trillions in federal debt? Recall Grover Norquist's comment: Reduce the size of the government to the point where it will fit in a bathtub, then drown it. They can't achieve that politically, but a huge recession or depression will do nicely to finish of what Reagan started.

Um, with Democrats their to "block" him in the Senate? The question likely answers itself.

Jayce Cox asked:

Under list of unacceptable candidates Mitt Romney only violation is Mormon. Why does this alone make him an unacceptable candidate?

What about the first amendment?

I think Jon was speaking about the perception, among Republicans (and perhaps even just "Republican elite") about their own candidates, as opposed to his personal feelings about the candidates one way or another.

That's just a guess, of course, as I haven't asked him personally, but I think it's a reasonable one. At least it was my reading of his piece.

Just wondering if that comment about Ron Paul is how you perceive him or how the Republican party perceives him. In any event, he has a fairly good chance of winning, I would say especially if they try to foist Jeb upon everyone because that is just getting a little to close to monarchy for most people, even Republicans.

In any event, my bet is on comment 14, they (meaning Bush and Cheney, I don't know about all Republicans) don't care about the election this time because martial law is just an executive declaration away.

All the more reason to agitate as vigorously as possible for the impeachment of both Bush and Cheney NOW! Even if it would be difficult to gather the votes in the Senate for actual removal from office, it would at least focus the country's glaring attention on the multiple high crimes they have committed while in office (should we, dare say, getting into office in the first place).

You are right, but you do not go far enough and Jeb won't be the replacement. If the GOP is to survive 2008, Bush himself must go. January 2008 the new President will be......Condi Rice. As sitting President would America turn out a Republican, conservative, first Black, first Woman President....NEVER! Goodbye Hillary Goodbye Obama

While not quite as good a scenario for George Bush as Bill's wife becoming president, it comes close.

It is an open secret in Washington that Condi is alky George's girlfriend, and that Laura has left the White House to stay in the Mayflower Hotel at various times because of it.

Cheney is a leech who would be loathe to give up power, and he might be willing to trade away one more year of direct power for up to 8 more years of very strong influence via Bush/Condi. Further, Condi has shown herself to be a weak sister reliant on Cheney, who would no doubt continue to be her political handler.

With both Bush and Cheney behind Condi, it all adds up. I had thought that they would have made their move earlier, but perhaps they waited to let the potential opposition destroy itself, making Condi the "above-the-fray" candidate who "rescues" the Republicans (and especially the neocon Republicans) from getting savaged in next year's election.

Brad is correct that my reference to Romney's Mormon faith was in a laundry list of candidates' weaknesses as perceived by GOP power brokers. As a Southerner by birth (but Californian by choice), I agree with the GOP elite that their Christian Nationalist base would balk at voting for a Mormon --- as they would for a Catholic, Jew, African-American or woman. Just ain't gonna happen. They'll stay home or vote for a third party candidate.

Jeb definitely has baggage: He's a converted Catholic and his wife is Mexican. But he would have one ace up his sleeve that none of the other candidates have so far: Karl Rove.

Btw, here's an article I wrote a couple of years ago about Cheney's "radical cardiectomy." I had a little fun with Photoshop, too, to illustrate Cheney's coal black heart. Enjoy.

Finally, if it were to happen that Bush and Cheney were impeached together --- say for lying to prosecutors about their roles in covering up their conspiracy to reveal the secret identity of CIA agent Valerie Wilson --- the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, would become president.

Has the 1 nuclear tipped cruise missile that was launched from the B-52 bomber sent out from Minot Air force base on August 30th ever been found yet?
If it has not been recovered yet, Cheney may not want to be around when it is.

I've read that people can be in a-fib without knowing it. However, I had a bout of a-fib and I knew it immediately when it happened. My doctor very explicitly told me to reduce stress, sleep more, and eliminate caffeine and stimulating medications (like decongestants).

It could be an elaborate scheme to lead to a resignation, but given Cheney's history of heart disease, I'm inclined to believe that it really was discovered during a doctor visit. I also read a story that speculated that Cheney's persistent cough could be a sign of early stage heart failure (indicating fluid building up in the lungs). There is, however, a virus going around that leads to a cough that lasts two or three weeks.

Dementia is a loss of brain function. It is not a single disease. Instead, dementia refers to a group of illnesses that involve memory, behavior, learning, and communicating problems. The problems are progressive, which means they slowly get worse.